Don’t forget that jQuery 1.x supports IE 6/7/8 and jQuery 2.x does not. Here are the highlights of what changed:

Asynchronous Module Definition (AMD): In this release we’re going full-mast with AMD. jQuery has supported having the library itself loaded by an AMD loader ever since version 1.7. Now, we’re using AMD internally as well, replacing our old modular build system. Colin Snover started it with some fine cutlass work, then Timmy Willison made sure the whole library was drawn and quartered properly with AMD. He even mollycoddled you with a fine README file so you can be buildin’ yer own custom version. And because we’re pirates, we’re using aaaarrrrr.js to build it.

Performance: Michał Gołębiowski led the charge to reduce jQuery’s startup time by deferring much of the feature detection code so that it runs the first time you use an API call, rather than on page load. If you never call the API, you never even need to run that code! We also found and removed some situations where jQuery unnecessarily forced a page layout to occur.

Bower support: We’re now using Bower for a lot of our internal dependency management, and plan to publish production versions of jQuery to Bower in the future.

Bug fixes: We keelhauled a few scurvy bugs since the last versions. There’s a list down the way if you want to be knowin’.

API changes:None! With all the internal code changes for AMD, we didn’t want to change a lot of APIs in this version. Your old scurvy code should work with no problems as long as you already did an upgrade to 1.9+ or are using the jQuery Migrate plugin.

Now we know some of you may not be takin’ the time to try this beta. We got a name for you: bilge rats. Don’t be comin’ to us after the release and complainin’ about bugs. Get on board and man the lines so we can get this code shipshape before the beta is over!

A tip of the pirate hat to the sea dogs and scallywags who got this release under way: Timmy Willison, Michał Gołębiowski, Oleg Gaidarenko, Richard Gibson, Amey Sakhadeo, Jörn Zaefferer, Chris Price, Daniel Herman, Guy Bedford, Jeremy Dunck, Mike Sidorov, and Terry Jones. And of course an aye-aye shout-out to the original jQuery pirate, Long John Resig!

12 thoughts on “jQuery 1.11 and 2.1 Beta 1 Released”

Congrats on pulling this together. It looks like a lot of work went into this release from github’s point of view (though the bug fix list is short)!

That said, it also looks like the 1.x series is just a burden. Now that WaSP is disbanded, would The jQuery Foundation be able to start an initiative alerting users of XP’s demise? Perhaps members of the foundation can start notifying users on their web sites that XP’s browsers will no longer be supported in 6months time.

Here’s hoping that this xmas brings many new PCs and less horrible Android phones to users :) Remember, if you see someone using a Gingerbread phone, take it and break it.

Why the hell did you use versions to indicate the supportset? I can’t use the latest version because I need IE7 support. If jQuery was simply in two “editions” that have the same version, anyone would be able to use the latest version, EVEN THOUGH both are the latest.

@Martijn You can use the latest jQuery in IE7; lines 1.x & 2.x are maintained concurrently. The number 2.x was chosen as this is the future; some time into the future we’ll drop 1.x completely and 2.x will be the only true jQuery. For now, we continue to maintain both lines (and we don’t plan to change that any time soon).